For the past few weeks, Congressman Ron Paul has argued that canceling America’s natiional debt is a quick way to make the nation’s fiscal crisis more manageable. The Lake Jackson Republican stuck to his guns, yesterday introducing legislation in the House that would do just that, according to The Hill.

Under his proposed bill, H.R. 2768, the federal government’s debt would be lowered by erasing the $1.6 trillion that the Treasury owes to the Federal Reserve.

Paul has said that Fed purchases of the Treasury’s debt represent a debt that the government owes to itself, and it creates a worrisome inflationary increase in the nation’s money supply.

“If the federal government cannot cut spending and bring the budget back into balance, the Fed undoubtedly will be forced to simply monetize trillions of dollars in Treasury debt,” Paul said in May. This “is nothing more than a stealth form of default.”